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Should the NFL have a hard salary cap?


Tetsujin

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I like the hard cap (in general) because it evens things out but there should be such a way, in my opinion, that you would be able to retain the players you drafted if you can afford to pay them without thinking about the cap. It would take some thought, but I think it could be doable. Maybe allowing X amount re-signees/extendees on the team have half their salary count towards the cap?

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Yes. NBA becomes a headache with all of the ways you can circumvent the cap. Bird rules, luxury taxes, etc ...too much of a hassle to wrap my head around that.

Hard cap takes away the funny accounting. You have an allotment, you spend that allotment. No more than that.

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Yes, absolutely. It's unquestionably better for the game, to me. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see the dynasty KC could build if we didn't have a cap casualty or two every year (I do like thinking of our offense adding back Morse, Hudson, and Fulton on the interior, with Conley and Wilson as our 4th and 5th WRs), but that roster movement is better for the parity of the league overall. The teams that draft and develop talent the best still wind up being the best teams in football, the cap just helps ensure that like 3 straight good drafts doesn't just instantly make a team elite for a full decade. It's a crucial balancing point, that makes it harder to achieve sustained greatness, while also giving fans of recently poorly performing teams more to look forward to. Your team sucks? Hey, you probably have a ton of cap space because you suck, so maybe your team will leech the right players from the teams that did develop talent correctly.

And I think the type of allowance you're discussing, of having a number of drafted players not count or count for less, is inevitably going to be dramatically more favorable to the good teams. Like, if KC doesn't really have to factor in the cost of paying Mahomes $40M, there may as well not be a cap at that point. Even if it was like, 5 players at half cap cost, or something, you'd create an environment where KC could get Mahomes, Jones, Hill, and Kelce, for like $40M of cap space a year. Mahomes would become cheaper than Ryan Tannehill or Jimmy Garapollo. It becomes unbalanced in favor of teams that have expensive players, which is the opposite of the point of the cap originally.

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9 minutes ago, candyman93 said:

There needs to be a cap floor

There is, its just rather weak in its implementation. See below from OTC

https://overthecap.com/minimum-cash-spending-does-it-mean-anything/

On the flip side... right now there's still a ton of unspent cap space across the league - about $500 million
Teams need to carry about $ 6-7M each for in season rosters moves, but that still leaves in excess of $225 M in unspent cap space across the league
That's enough for 1-2 more vets for each franchise

https://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space/

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27 minutes ago, Hunter2_1 said:

Yep. Watch soccer and see how the same teams win the leagues year in year out (9 times in a row for Juventus and Bayern Munich). You think you're pss'd off with the Pats for 6 in 20 years....

NFL has it right.

   Or try being a fan of a small market MLB team, like the Pirates. Where you don’t keep anyone. Ever. 

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Yes. Next question.

 

Edit: That said I did like someone's recent suggestion of allowing a particular percentage of the cap that doesn't get counted exactly for a QB signing a long term deal.

Ex: QBs can make up to 18% of the cap, that is not counted towards the actual cap. So when Mahomes reups next offseason, he'd get $39.6M-$41.4M per year (assuming a cap of $220M-$230M) that doesn't count towards the cap.

In short. This doesn't punish a team for actually finding a good QB long term.

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Isn't the NFL cap already the "hardest" of the three biggest leagues? (I don't know diddly about the pay structure of professional hockey.)

3 hours ago, Tetsujin said:

I like the hard cap (in general) because it evens things out but there should be such a way, in my opinion, that you would be able to retain the players you drafted if you can afford to pay them without thinking about the cap. 

Now you're talking about making what is already a fairly hard cap softer, all within the "Should the NFL Have a Hard Salary Cap" thread topic. 

I'm confused.

However, I do agree with what I bolded in your post there. The new CBA adds bonuses for keeping your own, drafted, players--even above what the last agreement had. But it's not enough. Something drastic needs to be done, and it's unfortunate this was ignored in the recent spate of negotiations. What @Danger proposed--essentially exempting quarterback salaries from the cap--would be a spectacular move. 

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31 minutes ago, Heinz D. said:

Isn't the NFL cap already the "hardest" of the three biggest leagues? (I don't know diddly about the pay structure of professional hockey.)

Now you're talking about making what is already a fairly hard cap softer, all within the "Should the NFL Have a Hard Salary Cap" thread topic. 

I'm confused.

However, I do agree with what I bolded in your post there. The new CBA adds bonuses for keeping your own, drafted, players--even above what the last agreement had. But it's not enough. Something drastic needs to be done, and it's unfortunate this was ignored in the recent spate of negotiations. What @Danger proposed--essentially exempting quarterback salaries from the cap--would be a spectacular move. 

I think you're just misreading the question in the title. He isn't asking, "Should the NFL move to a hard cap?" He's asking something more resembling, "The NFL has a hard cap, but should it stay that way?" The OP is asking if the NFL's cap should be softened.

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I'd like to see a harder cap

No salary restructures, signing bonuses spread over the length of the contract, etc

Once a contract is signed 5 years 75 Million, it's 15 million per year and that's that. The NHL does it this way and it's great

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2 hours ago, TheGame316 said:

I'd like to see a harder cap

No salary restructures, signing bonuses spread over the length of the contract, etc

Once a contract is signed 5 years 75 Million, it's 15 million per year and that's that. The NHL does it this way and it's great

That is already the case.

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Yes. If you allowed teams to retain talent they drafted you’d go back to the 80’s Nd 80’s where only a handful of teams had a chance every 10 years. From SB 6 to SB 19 only the Cowboys, Raiders, Steelers, Niner’s, Dolphins and Redskins won. Only one of them had a single SB in that time (Redskins). 
 

Meanwhile the Dolphins appeared in 5, Steelers and Cowboys appeared in 4 (and the Cowboys appeared in another the year before that time frame), the Redskins, Vikings and Raiders were in 3 and the Niner’s were in 2. 
 

So out of 26 SB spots you had 7 teams make up 24 of them. 

 

Meanwhile go to the last 14 years. Start at 41. The Patriots appeared in 6 (07, 11, 14, 16, 17, 18) but they were a clear outlier. Then the Colts were in 2, the Steelers were in 2, the Niner’s were in 2, Seahawks were in 2, Broncos in 2, Giants in 2, Bears in 1, Ravens in 1, Eagles in 1, Chiefs in 1, Cardinals in 1, Saints in 1, Packers in 1. Panthers in 1, Falcons in 1.

So even with a huge anomaly over the last 14 years you ended up with 16 teams in the SB or half the league. Which is 7 less than the period I outlined. 
 

You still make out better with the current system. 

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15 hours ago, Hunter2_1 said:

Yep. Watch soccer and see how the same teams win the leagues year in year out (9 times in a row for Juventus and Bayern Munich). You think you're pss'd off with the Pats for 6 in 20 years....

NFL has it right.

Exactly, soccer is a case of who has the deepest pockets, very little about managing and coaching.

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